The Vector-Thread Architecture

Abstract

The vector-thread (VT) architectural paradigm unifies the vectorand multithreaded compute models. The VT abstraction providesthe programmer with a control processor and a vector of virtualprocessors (VPs). The control processor can use vector-fetch commandsto broadcast instructions to all the VPs or each VP can usethread-fetches to direct its own control flow. A seamless intermixingof the vector and threaded control mechanisms allows a VT architectureto flexibly and compactly encode application parallelismand locality, and a VT machine exploits these to improve performanceand efficiency. We present SCALE, an instantiation of theVT architecture designed for low-power and high-performance embeddedsystems. We evaluate the SCALE prototype design usingdetailed simulation of a broad range of embedded applications andshow that its performance is competitive with larger and more complexprocessors.